Saturday, March 16, 2024

Ode to Supporting Actors And Actresses That Do Not Win

Ken from Barbie with shades on
The film industry’s award season tends to come to an annual end with the culmination of the popular, prestigious, and much-coveted Academy Awards. Although each award and film festival are precious and valuable on their own, combined they give weight and momentum to several selected individuals who then become the frontrunners at the Oscars.

There is a building and budding narrative that gradually takes shape and form over this period, and we often see certain trends emerge where a handful of specific movies, actors, actresses, filmmakers, etc. are favored throughout. For better or worse, all of this then culminates in the Oscars, the playoffs of all things movies and filmmaking.

Yet, more often than not (the occasional upset, snub, or surprise notwithstanding), we have an inkling or two of who or what movies are most likely going to win in their respective categories. It is not always set in stone, but the element of surprise may have less of an impact once we get to the award ceremony. That said, things become more interesting when there is a close competition or run-off, usually between two opponents that are just too close to call.

Although it may be a more muddled affair regarding Best Pictures (we even had a mix-up in which everyone had easily accepted La La Land as the year’s recipient when it in fact it had not won), it usually becomes more or less clear who the frontrunners especially when it comes to the acting category. This year, the leading actor with a realistic and probable shot was pretty clearly outlined, that is Oppenheimer’s proud Irish boy Cillian of course although Paul Giamatti had a good run and made a strong push by gaining some admirable momentum towards the end.

The Actress in a Leading Role category was an altogether different matter, however. It was a close and virtual tie between two powerful performances (sadly at the time of writing, I have not seen either movie so I cannot weigh in or make any credible or valid judgments on the matter) and up to the very end, it could have gone either way. At any rate, both deserved to win but only one had to be chosen.

Yet what about the other nominated actresses? Essentially, there was no chance for them to win. They started off the award season with high hopes and the potential to win, but they would have to be content with just being nominated. I mean, of course, it is an honor and accomplishment to be there (so many in the acting profession would envy them) but think of it how it must feel to put on your best outfits knowing fully well that you had absolutely no chance of winning.

This is not a matter of performance. The performance has already been done and it is finished now and all they can do is watch and hope for a miracle. Miracles do happen but this is one of the cases where there is very little one can personally do to make it happen or to bring it about. Unlike athletic events, you could have an exceptionally great day and pull off an upset, or the favorites may just have a bad and unlucky day, yet in this case, your fate is in the hands or fingers of voting members.

Many of these nominated actors and actresses know that they have almost no chance of winning and so they go to network and socialize and have fun. A funny incident in the television award season was Pedro Pascal who had given up hope and decided to get drunk only being shocked that he actually won! Yet, for the most part and for most actors and actresses, having a good time is what it is all about.

Yet, I am curious about what it feels like to go to each of the award seasons and not to win a trophy each and every time. Is that not discouraging or having a negative effect on one’s mental health? To say to yourself, here we go again, and we will yet again not win another award? Would one at times not prefer to be watching afar instead of facing cameras and subsequent social media scrutinizing each nonverbal gesture and response to the often expected announcement?

Although generally those in the acting profession tend to show up and they should be good at bottling or hiding emotions like anger, disappointment, frustration, all courtesy of their career, there have been occasional glaring absences, which may be due to involvement in other projects or simply because they do not wish to be there and go through the motions. Yet, here we go again, I am making pronouncements on things I will never experience myself and hence know next to nothing about. And yet, it is curiosity that makes me think and wonder about such things.

I do not have a solution or suggestion here. Except to ensure that those who are not on the winning side ensure that they do not carry negative feelings but instead focus on the positive aspects and experiences. To boycott those events when you know you cannot win would send decisively negative vibes to the entire award season and the film industry itself so showing up on the red carpet smiling and going through the motions despite knowing that there is little to no chance of winning still seems to be the best option out there.

But this is my ode here to support all the actors that do not win and including those who never get nominated. Some of the greatest actors and filmmakers have not won awards and it does not make them any less great. Quite to the contrary. They are who they are, and they (hopefully) know this deep inside.

Then, there are those who should not have quit their day jobs, but they did anyway. They may not be particularly good at acting or filmmaking for that matter, but they have a passion and a dream, and I would be the last person to step on those wishes and desires. You do what you do and if you are fortunate, you will be doing what you love. If awards and recognition come to you, it feels great but that should not be the end goal. The end goal is to do what gives you joy and if it happens to bring joy to others as well, it is definitely a win-win situation.

Maybe we can learn from Ryan Gosling who in my view had the best performance of them all. But like his character Ken, he is a ten, but he does not get what or who he wants. At times, life is such. No matter how hard we try or how much we desire something or someone, we are left wanting.

It is like waiting for a call or calling that just won’t come or materialize.  And yet, the best (and really only) thing one can do for sure is to give an awesome, inspired, fun, and memorable show (Gosling’s showstopping performance anyone?) and not take any of this too seriously. I mean, after all, it is just an awards program and there are other things to life than winning or not winning an award.

 

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Upcoming KPU Talk on Arts and Humanities, Creativity, and Mental Health


Dear Blog Reader,

First off, I would like to express my gratitude to you all for visiting my blog! It is very much appreciated! Moreover, I am thrilled and excited to invite you to a free virtual event taking place on March 13, from 12 – 1 PM (PST) on the topic of mental health. I shall be sharing my research interests, my lifelong love and passion for the arts and humanities in addition to personal life experiences.

My proposal is that the arts, in whatever way, shape, and form, have the potential to help us not only deal with stress and anxiety but also to give us comfort and solace during difficult times in our lives. Furthermore, they can motivate us on the quest to find and refine our own unique voice and carve our own path in life filled with empathy and purpose.

Although anything can have its share of disadvantages and downsides, if the arts and humanities are channeled and seasoned with care, hope, optimism, and critical thinking, they can lead us to unexpected shores of knowledge, insights, and epiphanies.

I will talk about my interest in literature, my passion for classical music, opera, alternative rock, and cinema (everything from Taxi Driver and The Matrix to The Dark Knight and Wings of Desire) as well as my deep fascination and appreciation for philosophy and psychology. I believe they can all liberate our hearts and minds from undue stress and negativity, unlock our hidden creative potential, unleash our beautiful splendent uniqueness, and bring inner and outer peace into the world.

I very much look forward to seeing you there and you will also have the opportunity to comment or ask me questions at the end of the session! 😉

You can register here: KPU Arts Speaker Series

Thank you very much and hope to see you soon!


 


Thursday, February 29, 2024

The Algorithm of Relaxation and How Being Yourself Is Your Best Version and Option

I have always been suspicious of the concept of attempting to be the best version of yourself, and for good reason. This idea tends to be sponsored and promoted by the Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy community that was pretending or believing that it was merely a matter of changing your mindset and then you could just act out what you think or assume would be the best possible scenario in your mind and by extension the best version of yourself.

Although I am not averse or opposed to this notion and idea when it comes to planning, setting goals, following dreams, and even setting boundaries, there can be no better version or substitute than being who you truly are deep inside; that is authentically giving your innermost essence a voice and acting from it, that is from the heart.

But how do you know who you are? It would start with first figuring out what resonates with you. This cannot be achieved except by tuning into yourself and looking inward, a curious mindful mix of introspection and reflection that would give you insights into the core of your essence. It involves an openness to thought, feeling, and action to discover and uncover who you truly are. Many times, you are not who you think you are or even who you wish you were, and yet, the real you needs to shine through like rays of the sun. That is in fact the only time you would not only find but also embody inner peace and calm.

How to get there? The answer is it is not easy and will take effort and hard work. Yet one thing is certain, you cannot be yourself and worry at the same time. To attain a connection with yourself, like your source of creativity, you need to be calm and collected. Anxiety would create ripples in the sea of your essence and not let you see and feel things clearly.

Put differently, to be yourself you must relax, and ipso facto, the first step is to deal with anxiety. Anxiety, stress, and worry tend to be negative and toxic emotions that make you tense, and they are by definition the opposite of relaxation. In many ways, they would lead to thoughts and behaviors that may be the exact opposite of who you are and how you are as well as how you would like to be.

For your anxiety to diminish, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, you would want to be aware of it and accept that it is anxiety. Although it may fluctuate in level and intensity, we all have it and those who claim they are not anxious tend to score higher on the spectrum as they fail to recognize that they are human and will need to have a certain level of anxiety to function and survive in the world.

Anxiety is like thinking and so we can paraphrase Hamlet by saying there is nothing either good or bad in the world, but our anxiety makes it so. If you look at the sensations we have when we are thrilled and excited and when we feel anxiety, there is essentially not much of a difference there except how we label and respond to the feeling.

Even in daily jargon, we say that we are anxious for something to take place meaning that we are looking forward to it. To illustrate this with another example, we can cry for various reasons. It may be out of sadness or an exuberance of joy. This means that the act of crying on its own does not mean or constitute that it is always due to sadness; too much laughter can fill our eyes with tears. Feelings are often not as clear-cut, but we need to process them. It is of course much easier to process feelings of happiness than those of sadness but process them we must.

To be able to process them, you need to face them. Avoiding or circumventing them will rob you of the opportunity to process them effectively and by extension to learn and grow from them. Yet at the same time, it is important to be gentle with yourself and not push yourself too hard or criticize yourself too harshly.

It is best to lean into what is giving you anxiety, a form of tiptoeing into water instead of throwing yourself into the deep end. With patience and practice, you will learn to swim and even surf the waves. A given situation will not arouse strong uncomfortable feelings anymore, and even if they do, you will be better able to handle and deal with them.

To help you along is also the necessary insight and awareness of the situation and context. Our fear has kept humanity alive since time immemorial as we dodged tigers and wolves to survive. This inbuilt alarm system with its fight, flight, and even freeze options is a necessary component for our survival. We want to appreciate it and not curse it.

Yet, due to previous trauma and experiences, toxic feelings, and negative thinking, we may lose focus and even see things out of focus. That is when context is essential for us to notice that it is not always an existential threat even though it may feel as such. With this awareness, that it may not pose a grave threat but may even be innocuous in the grand scheme of things, we can reappraise and reevaluate the situation and respond to it in an appropriate and much calmer manner.

This is where AR, the algorithm of relaxation can become rather useful. You then look at a given situation and decide whether it is a serious issue or not. There are generally two options; either it is serious, or it is not. At first glance and as your knee-jerk response, you may think it is not only serious but an absolute tragedy or disaster. Yet when you ask yourself, is it really that serious and important, you may see it from a different light and perspective.

In some cases, we may not have sufficient bits of information to make a judgment call. In those cases, we often opt for the worst-case scenario, but we ought to keep that in check as worrying is not going to help us to deal and tackle with the issue in an effective way and manner.

Let us illustrate this with a few examples. Say, your boss wants to talk to you. This is usually followed by an immediate feeling of dread. We assume the worst and are already imagining getting sacked. A lighter shade of this strain of catastrophic thinking would entail being criticized, scolded, or reprimanded for something we have done.

It would be best to ask ourselves, is there any real cause for concern? Did we do something wrong? If we made a mistake, was it that serious? Will there not be a remedy for it? We could apologize or promise to do better the next time around.

What if it is nothing of importance but just a simple and friendly chat? Perhaps they might ask you a simple question that may not be even related to you and your work. Or, even better, what if it is good news and you are going to receive some praise for your great performance. What if there is the possibility of a promotion? Instead of jumping to conclusions and expecting the worst, you are giving yourself the freedom and latitude to imagine possible and potential alternative reasons for this tête-a-tête with your superior or supervisor.

If it is indeed serious, then you can tackle it with a clear focus. If it is not, you shall not waste your time and energy worrying about it. In either case, you want to avoid assuming the worst, especially without any sort of proof and evidence that it may be so. If you, however, have acted unethically or inappropriately, then it would be best to face the situation and the consequences, the same way one would face one’s anxiety.

What if your loved one wants to have a talk with you? Let us not sugarcoat this, that is usually a sign of trouble. Then again, if it is, ask yourself, if perhaps something good can come out of it. It is perhaps a long-due conversation that needs to happen, and it may not be as devasting and shattering as we make it out to be. In fact, although we may not wish it or would try anything to avoid it, it may even clear the air and lead to an improved level of communication and rapport and much less tension between the two of you.

Again, if it is indeed the end of the relationship, you may not necessarily see it as the end of the world but see it as the turning of a new page no matter how painful it may feel at the moment. That dreaded talk with your boss or partner may end up being much less serious than you thought it to be, and by using the algorithm of relaxation, you may be able to see through it much easier and much faster and spare yourself the drama and unnecessary worry and preoccupation that usually comes with it.

So why not try AR in your daily life whether it is the cancellation of your favorite concert or the just or unjust loss of employment? For instance, I used to fret over mistakes. I would call it part of my perfectionism, but one day, I realized that being a perfectionist was often used as a euphemism for one’s insecurity. It may be a different matter when it comes to the arts but for me, it was ensuring that my exams did not contain any errors. I would triple-check everything and God forbid there was a mistake on the sheet, which had somehow escaped my probing eyes.

You can imagine the amount of stress and pressure I would feel and put on myself for something that was not that important after all. Deep down, who cared if there was indeed an error? This was not precision surgery or rocket science in which a minor detail could endanger people’s lives and, in some cases, even one’s own.

Errors are part of life and for those of us whose work is not a matter of life and death, they are really not a big deal. A mistake on the exam or a wrong answer to a student’s question? Or even failing an exam here and there at high school? On the scale of AR that is simply not that important to fret about, so it goes straight to the category of not to worry about it. Alternatively, throughout all these cases, you may just be taking yourself too seriously to begin with!

Now I am aware that AR could stand for augmented reality but in a way, it is not that different from it. You are turbocharging your reaction and seeing things more clearly and are not overreacting to situations by seeing the bigger picture and putting them into context.

The more you do this, the more relaxed you will be and much less on edge that something bad will happen to you. The side effect is that you may be a bit too relaxed at times and perhaps confuse or misplace minor things, miss the occasional deadline, forget a commitment or an appointment here and there, or you may even, God forbid, make an error at work or in your private life or both.

But on the grand scale of things and when looking at the bigger picture, none of them would be life-shattering or as important and as serious as we take them to be, especially after looking at them again with the magnifying lens of AR.

Conversely, you will feel more comfortable in your own skin, which is the most important outcome, so instead of worrying about being the best version of yourself, actually be yourself, which is essentially the only version that really counts and matters.